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Antonia Fraser and Harold Pinter first met in January 1975. After a dinner to celebrate the first night of a revival of The Birthday Party, she accepted a lift home. “I just must say hello to Harold Pinter,” she told her lift-giver, “and say it was a wonderful play, wonderful actors, you’re wonderful, blah blah blah.” Having done so she told Pinter, “Now I must be off.” He said, “Must you go?” She said, “No, it’s not absolutely essential”, and they spent the next 33 years together.

Lady Antonia was 42 when they met, and Pinter 44. They had both been married for 18 years, she to Sir Hugh Fraser,...